o Accusative plural in *-m probably begins to expand during the disintegration stage, not reaching all dialects.

o Genitive in *-n begins to lose its distinct form, due to the weakening of final consonants.

o Development of essive starts probably at this stage, with nouns marked before adjectives. The marker probably goes back to locative *-na, alternating with a translative *-ks (de Groot 2017).

· Possessor is still marked with the genitive, but a new trend begins whereby the head noun has a possessive suffix.

· Possessives:

o General weak initial tendency for possessive suffixes to be replaced by possessive pronouns, maybe under the influence of neighbouring Indo-European languages.

o Case suffix precedes the possessive suffix.

·Element *-nä from ‘I’ and ‘thou’ becomes a pronominal suffix.

· Verbs:

o Development of mood markers, such as imperative and negation in *-k, probably from an original emphatic function, and identical with the suffix of deverbal nouns.

o Subjunctive in *-ne-.

o Past tense developed late, a common ending is to be found in *-ś, and likely *-sa/-sä.

o Late Uralic past perfect tense (with endings followed by a vowel, as in the case of possessive suffixes) disintegrates to form the objective conjugation in certain branches.

o Negative verbal stem *e- as documented in PFP and Samoyed, with inconsistent attachment of verb categories to the negative auxiliary at this stage; probably at this stage also the *-lV added to the negative verbal stem in prohibitive expressions.

· Diminutives *-kV, *-ćV; also *-ntV, *- ŋkV.

· Suffix couple *-ćV- ~ *-śV- with many different meanings (duration, repetition, conative, momentary, reflexive, reciprocal, passive, onomatopoetic) point to its late development.

Linguistic palaeontology is much less helpful to locate the homeland in the case of Uralians, because of the limited ancient data, and the many loanwords (and borrowing stages) from neighbouring Indo-European languages. Nevertheless, there are some important clues.

2.3.2.1. Metallurgy

The Common Uralic terms *pata ‘clay pot’, and *u̯äśkä ‘copper, metal’, combined with the different layers of Late PIE borrowings, point to a terminus ante quem ca. 3500 BC for intense Proto-Uralic–Proto-Indo-European contacts (Kallio 2017), even without taking into account a potential Proto-Indo-Uralic community.

Especially relevant is the survival of the term for ‘copper’, the most important material for metallurgy during the Eneolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age. To this word we may add two terms for ‘tin’ or ‘lead, PFU *äsa and *u̯olnë, and the compound *äsa-u̯äśkä which clearly denotes an alloy of copper such as tin–bronze (Parpola 2013). Quite old are also PFP *irχeni/ürχeni ‘copper’, *sula ‘melt’, and various terms for ‘axe’, ‘hammer’, and other tools.

The loan of PU *u̯äśkä into Tocharian—probably by expanding Pre-Samoyedic peoples (see §3.6. Samoyedic)—and its survival into all Uralic branches (which have adopted many words from neighbouring languages for basic economic terms) points to the long-lasting relevance of copper and metallurgy in all expanding Uralic groups, as well as to their mastery in it compared to neighbouring peoples. Another early IE loan witnessing the important role of Uralic metallurgy is found in PU *u̯eŋći ‘knife’, borrowed in Proto-Indo-Iranian (probably during the vocalization of sonorants, see §3.4.1. Indo-Iranian evolution), appearing later as PIAr. *u̯āćī ‘knife, awl, axe’.

Since the Don–Volga–Ural area of the North Pontic–Caspian steppes can be said today with a great degree of certainty to be the homeland of the Middle and Late Proto-Indo-European communities, the North Pontic Middle and Late Eneolithic forest-steppe cultures can be confidently argued to correspond to the Proto-Uralic community. Rich copper assemblages with an origin in south-east European centres are known from the Dnieper and Donets basin—in contrast with the Khvalynsk area, which shows poorer copper furnishings—and technological innovations follow the same routes (Figure 3), pointing to continued trade contacts (Rassamakin 1999).

Later, Corded Ware blacksmiths emerging from North Pontic forest-steppe communities continued the Trypillian skills of processing ‘pure’ copper and arsenic bronzes, developing a copper–tin bronze industry in the Middle Dnieper and Abashevo cultures, which were near to important metallurgical centres (Klochko 2013). Especially Abashevo would become a leading metallurgical centre for eastern Europe and central Asia, controlling important metal ores in the southern Urals and up to the Zeravshan river. Abashevo showed close contacts with other Corded Ware-related cultures from the north-east European forest zone, associated with Finno-Permic peoples, and with cultures from the Trans-Ural region emerged with the expansion of the Seima–Turbino phenomenon (Figure 4), linked to the expansion of Ugric and Samoyedic peoples (Parpola 2013).

3.3.2.2. Hunters and fishers

Uralic is usually described as a culture of mainly hunter and fishers, based on the reconstructed vocabulary that survives to this day. This is compatible with a homeland not only in the north-eastern European forested areas, but also in most of the Pontic–Caspian region before the expansion of cattle herding around the mid–4th millennium BC, linked to expanding late Trypillian cultures in the west and to Repin settlers in the east. North Pontic groups in particular relied mainly on hunting and fishing for their dietary needs, even after the arrival of the Neolithic: sites like Deriïvka or Molyukhov Bugor in the forest-steppe region, and even Mikhailovka I in the North Pontic steppe were sedentary populations who had mainly hunting and fishing as their main subsistence economy (Rassamakin 1999; Mileto et al. 2017; Mileto 2018). If associated with the Corded Ware culture, Uralians would have had only one short period when cattle-breeding was the main subsistence economy: from the Proto-Corded-Ware community (ca. 3000 BC) to late Corded Ware groups (ca. 2200 BC). Cattle herding was soon substituted in north-eastern European communities derived from Battle Axe, Abashevo, or Balanovo groups for economic practices adapted to their new ecological niches and to the changing environment.

It is evident that, for subsistence economies that relied heavily on hunting and fishing (depending on the location and periods of climatic changes), certain old words may have shifted meaning from one domestic animal to another, and from domestic animals to game. A clear example of this evolution is PIE *peku- ‘cattle’, adopted as PFP *počau / Ob-Ugric *peečəɣ, today meaning ‘reindeer (domesticated, calf, …)’ or even ‘goat’. Another example is found in PU *teu̯ä ‘elk, reindeer’, probably adopted from the IE root *dhei- ‘suckle, nurse’, hence ‘milking’, ‘dairy cow’, cf. Skr. dhenú-, Av. daēnu- (Rédei 1988).

Therefore, many Proto-Uralic words related to different large animals may have been also used for domestic animals before (including their body parts, herding, actions, etc.), proper of a herding society. Similarly, many general words reconstructed with a simple global meaning may have actually served at some ancestral point for a specific farming purpose. For example, PFU *kurë ‘dig’, borrowed from PII *kar- ‘plough’ (originally ‘pull’), is used in certain Uralic dialects for digging and in others for ploughing, so the usual reconstruction of a meaning for the earliest stage is ‘to dig’, which seems to cover both terms; however, in this case the reconstructed original meaning the more complex one, as happens probably with other reconstructed ancestral meanings.

Given the presence of these terms predominantly in the western area, and without considering the different layers of Proto-Indo-European loanwords, it could be argued that they were borrowed by expanding Uralians from the east. However, since the languages they would have replaced in the East European forest zone would have been in that case Indo-European, and these terms are not, the most likely explanation is that the western Uralic dialects represent the original situation of a farming economy during their expansion to the east.

2.3.2.3. Mythology

Epics and incantation poetry include data for the reconstruction of common myths. Sources for myths of modern Uralic peoples show a strong influence of forest zone hunter-gatherers and arctic populations with which they mixed, so it is difficult to distinguish the different layers acquired during these cultural exchanges (Siikala 2002; van der Hoeven and Hasselblatt 2012; Frog and Stepanova 2012):

The sky is held by the World Pillar or World Tree, *koiu̯a ‘birch’, reaching from the earth to the centre of the sky, located to the north (often precisely to the North Star). The underworld corresponds to the mouth of a river, a dark bitter cold place of death and illness, represented to the North, while the upper world is at the source of the river, on a mountain or in the heavens in the southern abode.

The southern abode, *suŋe ‘sommer’, is the land of the life-giving Mother Sun, and contains a reservoir of unborn children’s souls awaiting birth by being transported by a mythical water bird, *śoδka ‘diving duck’. This mythical bird also participates in the creation of the world from the World Egg, a myth that also present in the Vedas and in the Avesta. The Underworld is governed by a Devil whose home element is water, where he hides from Thunder.

The myth of the theft of the Sun and Moon involves Mother Sun and also the female ruler of death and illness. The governing god is the Sky God, *numä ‘heaven, sky’, also occasionally separated into opposed governing and sky god under the names *i̯uma, or *(i̯)ilma, possibly under influence of Indo-Iranian *dii̯u-mn̥-. The Thunder God is considered an introduction of neighbouring Scandinavian and Baltic peoples, due to the borrowing of names, although these could have replaced ancestral Uralic terms.

Death is considered a soul’s journey over the water. There is a duality of the soul: a mobile part, *iće, which can detach from the person during dreaming; and a corporeal soul or soul element vital to sustaining life, *leuli. The shaman, *noita, is capable of achieving trance and communicating with spirits, and can thus help the souls in their journey.

Rituals of animal ceremonialism include the complex myths and rites surrounding bear-killing, with a return of the animal’s bones and body parts to its guardian spirit to promote its rebirth.

Potential Late Proto-Uralic borrowings, including some reconstructed for Proto-Finno-Ugric (PFU), are most likely to have happened during the late Repin / early Yamna culture expansion, through the close contacts of these peoples with Proto-Corded Ware groups in the Dnieper-Dniester area, i.e. during the late Common Indo-European / Disintegrating Indo-European stage. After the Corded Ware expansion, some Corded Ware groups were probably in close contact with Late PIE speakers from Yamna, which may account for some of the late borrowings during this stage.

Unlike in the previous stage, where the correspondance is assumed to have been PIE *H ~ LPU *k (roughly equivalent to Indo-Uralic, see above), this period shows a general equivalence LPIE *-H-→ LPU *-š-, except word-final, where laryngeals disappear. This important evolution is probably the result of independent phonetic changes in Uralic and in PIE (including laryngeal loss), which may suggest a period of separation between both communities.

The original proposal by Koivulehto (1991) included an initial LPIE *H-→ PU *k-, but its similarity with older Indo-Uralic roots (or PIA ~ EPU borrowings) make such an assumption very difficult to prove with any example. Adding to this is the process of laryngeal loss, with laryngeals already disappearing during the Disintegrating Indo-European stage. The probability of finding a Late PIE dialectal loan with an initial laryngeal is consequently very small:

· A commonly cited example is Gmc. aluþ (<*hal-u-?) ‘ale, beer’ (Kroonen 2013) ~ Finn. kalja, but even its PIE etymology is disputed: Hitt. alu̯anz ‘being bewitched, affected by sorgery’ is probably non-IE (Kloekhorst 2008); Ita. *alu- ‘bitter substance’ may be cognate to Gk. alú-, and both in turn connected to Germanic-BSl. *alu- ‘beer’; but BSl. cognates are probably all loans from Germanic, and some of them (if not all) probably belong to a European substratum language (de Vaan 2008).

· Another example is Gmc. *agi̯ō- (< DIE *hak-i̯ah-) ‘edge, blade’ (Kroonen 2013) ~ Finn. kasa (<LPU *kaća) ‘point, edge’, which is argued by Kallio and Koivulehto (2018) not to be reconstructible for the parent languages, hence a late borrowing. However, the authors seem to overlook[v] the difficulty in supporting Gmc. (or PIE) *-k- ~ PU *-ć- , and especially that there is also—from the same root as the proposed one—a reconstructed PIA *χek-, found e.g. as Gk. akḗ (<**ħek-eħ-) ‘point, edge’, and also behind other words for ‘edge’ and ‘sharp’ in Anatolian and non-Anatolian words. An Indo-Uralic origin is, therefore, possible, as is a CIE **ħâk-aħ→ Early PU loan (when the change of vocalism after laryngeal is already happening), but also—given the difficulties of reconstructing the intervocalic consonant—a fully different origin of the Finnic word.

· Another such proposal of late borrowing by Kallio and Koivulehto (2018) includes Gmc. *blada- ‘leaf’ ~ Finn. leśti ‘leaf’, which also found as CIE *bhl̥h-(o)tó- in OIr., PT and Alb. derivatives with the same meaning, and whose peculiar vocalic changes from Germanic to Finnic are nevertheless left unexplained.

2.3.2.1. Early loans with initial PIE laryngeal as PU *š

Given the lack of clear Proto-Uralic examples of Indo-European loanwords with initial *k (leaving potential Indo-Uralic cognates or early PIA ~ PU wanderwords aside), it is tempting to attribute a consistent LPIE *H→ LPU *š in all positions, which seems typologically easier to defend. It also helps develop dialectal stages for both Late PIE and Proto-Uralic evolution.

Probably the most striking example of such a loanword is Early Proto-Finnic *šepo ‘horse’ (cf. Finn. *hepo, Est. hobu, Kar. hepo, Veps hepo, Liv. ibbi, Vot. õpo, opo), which would be reconstructed as PFU *šepä < LPU *šepä (Katz et al. 2003). This could in turn be from PIA, PA, or early CIE *heku (or *hek:u), or more likely[vi] from a late thematic *heku̯-o-, given that -ku̯- is not commonly reconstructed for PU, and that the evolution ku̯- ~ kw- ~ p- is typologically possible and not infrequent in IE languages; e.g. Ita. *ekwos, Cel *epos, PGk. *hipos, etc. and unlikely Ita-Gmc. *akwa < IE **ap-ā?). In fact, different outputs of PIE *-gw-have been proposed byKatz et al. (2003)for PFU, among them*-p-, which shows the unstable adoption of labiovelars in Uralic, although many examples are disputed(Aikio and Kallio 2005). Horseback riding technique was very likely directly exported to neighbouring Uralic speakers by expanding Indo-Europeans, which strengthens this proposal, even if it lies on the findings of a late Uralic dialect, and on unattested sound substitutions[vii].

Other potential loanwords from Proto-Indo-European into Proto-Uralic, marked by the presence of an initial laryngeal—i.e. CIE or early DIE, but some also potentially from Proto-Anatolian-like languages from the western steppes —include the following:

2.3.2.2. Late or undefined loanwords

Loanwords showing general Late Proto-Indo-European features are listed first, and then those with potential links to western or eastern communities. Nevertheless, during these common LPIE stages it is likely that related vocabulary could be found from east to west without much distinctive traits, which—added to subsequent lexical reductions and expansions of the following stages of each branch—makes it extremely difficult today to assert a precise (western or eastern) origin or extension of a root:

· DIE root *ou̯-i- ‘sheep’, has been proposed to be behind the root in PFU *u-či (<*o-čë /**u-ti̯e) ‘sheep’, although this is disputable (Hyllested 2009).

· Pre-Permic *pe(u)šenV ‘wash’ < DIE *peuh-e-no- ‘clean, winnow’ (Kümmel et al. 2001) proposed as a Pre-PII loan because of the Old Indian verb. The verb is nevertheless also found in Germanic, with the same meaning albeit with different vocalism, viz. Pre-NWIE *pouh-e-→ Pre-PF *po[u̯]š-ta→ *pošta- (Koivulehto 1991). The proposal of both as PU loanwords of the same stem having different regional (eastern and western) origin (Koivulehto 2003), although possible, is weak, because a) both PU forms originate from the same stem, and b) both IE ablauting forms may have been widely distributed in Disintegrating Indo-European.